Archangel
by paynesgrey
Summary: Elle Bishop becomes a Pinehearst agent to protect her son. Takes place during the "I am Become Death" exposed future, Season Three. ONE-SHOT.


AN: Written for ibonekoen for the heroes_exchange on Livejournal. Thank you to bellonablack for the beta work. This will not be continued.

Archangel

"They're never going to quit, Gabriel."

Elle crossed her arms and paced about the room. "Just because you don't intend to fight anymore, doesn't mean they won't. We've been running from them for years since Noah was born, and I just can't do this anymore. They'll find us; use us, and then what? What happens to our son?"

Gabriel Gray was staring intently at the floor. Elle bit her lip; it had taken her years to call him that, to lose the name _Sylar_ and accept that he had truly changed. Some moments she had feared for her life - when she thought he'd find out about the Petrellis, his real lineage, and even _her _initial deception, and take revenge on them all.

_If Noah hadn't been born... _She shuddered inwardly, shrugging away her dark thoughts and keeping her composure. The father of her son remained silent, but finally, he looked up at her with desperation.

"Elle, I can't. If we have to keep running, then well, we will. I can't fight them. I can't risk hurting Noah by returning to the way I used to be," he said with a shudder, before adding, "I can't risk becoming _Sylar_ again."

"No one is asking to risk Noah!" She hollered before turning away from his curious gaze. He knew her better than anyone; she had a plan, and she would not let Pinehearst have the upper hand. Like him, Elle would do anything to protect their son.

If Gabriel wasn't going to fight them, then she would. He could protect Noah from their home, and hopefully it was their _last _home as Noah Bennet bequeathed them his house and dog before Pinehearst killed him and his family. They couldn't leave this place now and dishonor his last request.

"I'm leaving tomorrow, Gabriel. I'll say goodbye to Noah in case I never see him again," she said, looking to his room where he was sleeping. When she saw Gabriel's expression change from worry to fear, she moved over to him. She drew him into an embrace as he leaned against her.

* * *

"What makes you think you're in any position to bargain with me?" Claire Bennet sneered.

Elle sat rigidly in the opposite chair in her Pinehearst office. The former cheerleader, now a Pinehearst agent, was resting her feet on her desk and looked at Elle coldly with a hardened smile and bored eyes.

Every time Elle encountered the Bennet woman since they'd been running from her, she could never believe how much she had changed.

"Use me," Elle hissed. "Even if you think you could catch me and take me prisoner, you know I'd never cooperate with you. You could torture me for hours, and you know I could take it. But if I came willingly, you could use me." Elle straightened in her chair and gave Claire a confident smile. "You know I'd be a good Pinehearst agent."

Claire didn't smile; she only met her challenge with a stony face, but Elle could see animation in her eyes.

Elle was going to win this battle.

* * *

"In return for your son's and Sylar's safety, you will be mine. You're going to do anything I ask, no complaints, no hesitation," Claire said, and she stopped as they were walking down the pristine halls of Pinehearst and turned to Elle. "Do you understand?"

"It's Gabriel, not Sylar," Elle corrected her, but Claire ignored her. Elle reluctantly moved on and continued speaking. "So what? You're going to give me the crap jobs?" Elle scoffed and rolled her eyes. "That hardly seems like torture. I _think_ I can take it."

Claire moved closer, her face as impassive and cold as ever. "You say that now, but you're going to do the things I refuse to do. The things others at Pinehearst refuse to do, and you'll see how much it can break a person, piece by piece."

Elle smiled arrogantly, obviously unaffected by Claire's words. She couldn't imagine jobs worse than the ones her own father made her do for the Company years ago.

"Even a girl who is unbreakable?" Elle challenged.

"I don't always get my hands dirty," Claire said. "Unlike you, I still have a heart."

Elle didn't believe her, and Claire knew it. After a heavy silence Elle nodded in affirmation.

"Fine, whatever, pom-pom," Elle said snidely. "As long as I still get to see my son."

Claire waved a hand flippantly. "As long as you do your job, I don't care if you see your son." Claire moved to leave, but then she paused and turned around, as if she couldn't help herself. Elle saw a new emotion flicker on the woman's face: pure disgust.

Clearly the cheerleader still didn't like that her late father Noah Bennet had chosen Elle and Gabriel over her. Though she said nothing, Claire kept her cold gaze on Elle until she finally walked away.

* * *

Elle returned home with a heavy heart. Noah saw her come inside and immediately ran into her arms.

"Mommy!" he said, and Elle drew him into a big hug. She smiled affectionately and ruffled his hair.

"Hey buddy, did you have a good day?" she asked, kissing his nose when he nodded.

"Dad made waffles again. He doesn't seem to know how to make anything else," Noah said as Elle giggled, and soon Mr. Muggles charged toward them, clamoring for some of Elle's attention. She patted the dog's head and picked up Noah, carrying him close to her chest.

"Did you go to your new job today, Mommy?" Noah asked, and Elle's smile faded slightly. Gabriel came into the living room to meet them, and she turned to him with a masked expression of joy.

"Yeah, honey. Mommy got a new job," she said, turning away from Gabriel's guarded stare as he watched her. She smiled reassuringly at her son. "But don't worry, buddy, I'll still be able to come home, and you'll have your daddy here and Mr. Muggles too."

"I'm going to miss you," he said, wrapping his chubby arms around her neck. "Even if you only work for a couple hours, I'll miss you."

Elle tried to hold back the tears in her eyes. She met Gabriel's gaze and it felt even harder to keep the tears back. He knew exactly what her job entailed.

She only hoped that her son would never find out.

* * *

"I don't want to argue with you," Elle said, after they put Noah to bed. It was unfair; Gabriel said nothing but his stare was unnerving her. It was almost like she could suddenly read his gloomy thoughts.

"You know what they'll make you do. You'll have to kill your own kind," Gabriel said, taking a sip of the Cabernet they were sharing.

Elle played idly with the stem on her glass as she absorbed his words into her thoughts.

"You already know I'm doing this for you and Noah," Elle said, taking a huge gulp of her wine. Suddenly, she was aware of the tears in her eyes, fighting their way down her cheeks. Gabriel sprung from his seat and came to her, holding her as she began to sob.

"I hate her," she said, clenching her fists. "I hate Claire Bennet, but if I don't give myself up...she'll stop at nothing to get to you...to Noah. And if she knew he had an ability..." She sniffled, and Gabriel drew her head into his chest.

"Stop," he said. "I'm not blaming you; I blame myself. I don't want you to do this, but I know you must."

She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at him with a sad smile. "Because if it were you, you'd lose control and kill everybody?" she said wryly.

Gabriel's lips thinned into a smile, spurring echoes from his darker past; however, the expression was fleeting and he frowned. "Elle, you know I could never go back to that lifestyle. It's too dangerous."

She sniffled again and straightened in his embrace. "Yeah, well, sometimes losing control and killing everybody in that stinking place isn't such a bad idea."

* * *

Stupid Claire Bennet sent her out to five dirty jobs that day; all before lunch, and Elle was starting to understand what pom-pom meant about the jobs getting to you.

She sent her only to capture children of terrorists, children with abilities that Pinehearst could use. Under some occasions, the terrorists didn't cooperate and Elle was forced to kill them. Even the children.

Claire Bennet called it collateral damage. As long as the terrorists were gone, the country was better off. Claire seemed disturbingly desensitized to it all, but Elle always came back to her after every job with an aching pinch in her chest. (Elle couldn't help it; sometimes she'd see Noah's face in the kids she had to kill.)

"We can't have the children growing up and wanting revenge on the country, now can we? Besides, the last thing this world needs is another Sylar," Claire sneered, and she turned away form Elle, blood still on her clothes and under her nails.

Claire gave her the next job.

* * *

"Peter's been sighted again," Knox told Claire that afternoon as Elle was out targeting known terrorists in Atlanta.

Claire's face lit up with a hopeful grin. "That means he's planning something big."

"How do you know?" Knox asked her, skeptically.

Claire turned to him with instant fury. "Because I _know_ him," she said. "He would never be so careless to reveal himself unless he was up to something."

"Our sources say he's been casing out a warehouse area. Do you think it's a hideout?" Knox asked again, and Claire looked ahead with a smirk. She rose from her office chair and started loading her weapon and hiding smaller knives and guns in the pockets of her leather outfit. Knox watched her work methodically before she turned to him with another order. "Assemble a team. We're going after Peter."

* * *

"There was a rumor going around that your brother appeared again," said Elle after she came home.

She pulled Gabriel aside while Noah was playing in the living room.

"Claire gathered a lot of people to go after him," she explained, and a Gabriel went tense, glancing at Noah in the other room.

"And did they get him?" he asked, and Elle shook her head.

"Daphne came over and said Claire was pissed. He seemed to have teleported out of Claire's grasp," Elle said, noting the relief on Gabriel's face.

"They can't catch him, not with all his abilities," Gabriel said proudly.

Elle watched him with a frown. "You know, you could have been just like Peter."

Gabriel turned to her defensively. "Peter doesn't have a son and a wife to take care of."

"Wife? Since when am I your wife? You've never formally proposed," she said, leaning close to him. Gabriel wrapped an arm around her, resting his hand on the small of her back. Elle moved flush against him, and he put a light kiss on her forehead, cupping her cheek in his other hand.

"I am now, Elle. I have the ring in the sock drawer, waiting for you, and the next moment you get off your new job; you, me and Noah are going down to the courthouse and we're going to make it official."

Elle melted against him, reveling in the softness of his words. This was everything she wanted, but they'd been running away from Pinehearst for so long that they never had the chance. She felt his lips against hers, and hungrily she complied, deepening their kiss.

When she pulled away, she grinned. "What brought this on? Don't get me wrong; I want to get married." Her voice turned soft, and her eyes sparkled brightly with anticipation. "I want us to be a family."

"We already are a family, and that's why we have to do this," he said, and soon his light tone sounded grim. "I'm worried about you; I'm worried about what working for Pinehearst is doing to you."

Elle's smile faded. "We've been through this."

"And I will always feel the same way about it," Gabriel said. "You shouldn't have to do this." His voice turned angry. "It should be me."

"But it's not, and Noah needs you," Elle said, and together they walked back to the living room as Gabriel followed her. "I'll try to get away from Pinehearst tomorrow as soon as I can."

They watched Noah for a moment longer, hands together. Elle looked up at Gabriel and smiled.

"Then we can get married."

* * *

"Peter's back," Daphne said, rushing up to Claire at her office in Pinehearst. They'd been casing the same warehouse building for a while, and the moment they spotted him, Daphne took off with the news.

"Here," she said, grabbing Claire's hand.

"I won't lose him this time," said Claire to herself before Daphne sped them both away.

* * *

Claire marched down the halls of Pinehearst seething after killing the present Peter, but failing to capture another Peter from the past.

"Get Elle back here _now_," Claire ordered as Knox and the Haitian flanked her sides. Daphne jumped quickly to do Claire's bidding and sped away to retrieve Elle from one her missions.

"What is Elle going to do? Even though our Peter is dead, she's not going to be any use against the younger Peter," Knox told her, which only seemed to incense Claire's anger.

"Listen, I made a bargain with Elle that I wouldn't hurt her son or her stupid boyfriend. If she finds out that Peter is going to seek out Sylar, she'll get in the way. She'll go back to protect them and warn them, and I can't have that. Elle must not know anything about that other Peter or that we may have to kill Sylar with him," Claire said.

"It's not like she can do anything if she does revolt against us. I bet I could take her down," Knox said arrogantly.

"That's not the _point_. I don't want anything or anyone to interfere from me killing Peter," Claire said adamantly. "If I have to use Sylar to do it, so be it, but Elle will never know. She'll never have the chance to step in to help her son and botch our mission to get Peter." Claire's face went dark and her tone lowered. "Better for us that she finds out when it's all over."

"What are we going to do?"

"Send her on the Ghost Mission," Claire said, a knowing smile forming on her face. "That'll occupy her for awhile."

"That's a bum mission. No one has ever been able to find Claude Reins in London or anywhere else," Knox said, perplexed.

Claire rolled her eyes at him. "That's why they call it the Ghost Mission. Just do it now before Peter shows up again!"

Knox nodded slowly in compliance as Claire set off to assemble the rest of her team.

* * *

Elle wondered if she and Gabriel would ever get a chance to get married. She didn't expect to be sent out on a job so soon and so far away, but Elle had no choice but to obey Claire's orders.

She touched down at London after a bumpy plane ride, carrying her one hastily packed bag, and headed out the airport onto the bustling streets.

She threw a glance over her shoulder at Flint, who was there to accompany her (more like guard her) on this mission. Apparently there was word that Claude Reins was spotted again, and Pinehearst was very interested in recruiting him, by any means necessary.

Elle knew Claude. He wasn't the sort of person who joined companies anymore, especially ones like Pinehearst, which had turned out to be more ruthless than the Company had ever hoped to become. Elle found it odd and pointless for Pinehearst to pursue the invisible man at all, and in the back of her mind, Elle had suspicions about Claire's true motives.

Thunder roared in the sky, and Elle looked up at the forming storm. As she and Flint passed by an electronics store downtown, she stopped behind a crowd of people behind the store's display of television sets.

Curiously, Elle sought the breaking news on the screen.

* * *

Thousands of miles away in Costa Verde, an explosion suddenly decimated the area, killing 200,000 innocent people. This terrible tragedy was felt throughout the country, as well as all around the world.

On the other part of the globe, an amplified cry of pain pierced through the streets of London.

A storm cracked open the sky, and one woman's sorrow charged the air into a blinding blaze.

END


End file.
